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Dricus Du Plessis knows who he wants to defend his Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Middleweight title against first.

Everything had aligned about as nicely as UFC could have asked for in the summer of 2023. Du Plessis pulled off a big second round technical knockout upset win over the former champion, Robert Whittaker, at UFC 290 in July 2023 (watch highlights). Therefore, he had become the clear No. 1 contender to face the then-champion, Israel Adesanya, a matter of months later at UFC 293 in September 2023.

Unfortunately for Du Plessis and Adesanya, the South African would-be challenger wasn’t healthy enough to make the turnaround after battling a foot injury against Whittaker. Adesanya instead fought Sean Strickland, which resulted in a unanimous decision loss for “The Last Stylebender” (watch highlights). Strickland went on to fall to Du Plessis via a split decision (watch highlights) this past January 2023, and now “StillKnocks” wants to book the original fight the world expected.

“So you claim you want to drag my carcass around in South Africa, as you (Adesanya) said,” Du Plessis told The Hustlers Corner (h/t MMA Fighting). “So be a man of your word, and let’s do it.”

The match up between Du Plessis and Adesanya was originally linked to UFC 300 next month (Sat., April 13, 2024). The main event slot is now occupied with the Light Heavyweight title tilt, featuring the champion, Alex Pereira, and former titlist, Jamahal Hill.

Strickland has been vocal recently about his desire for an instant rematch with Du Plessis. However, talks continue to go the route Du Plessis wants them to, beyond “Tarzan.”

“We are trying,” Du Plessis said of the title matchup. “We are talking, definitely. That’s what the people want to see, and that’s what I want to do. I want to fight the best guys. This is an entertaining sport.

“Who do I wanna fight? I don’t care, I’m the champion,” he continued. “I’ll fight whoever they put in front of me. But what I want in my heart is to fight the guy that the people want to see me fight.”

MMAmania.com – All Posts

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Fights come together fast these days, and if you blink, you can easily miss them. In Fight Roundup, we bring you the latest reported matchups to keep you up to date with what’s on the horizon.

All bouts featured have been officially announced or confirmed with MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz, Mike Heck, and Damon Martin via sources with knowledge of the matchups.

Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

Tatsuro Taira vs. Tim Elliott
Angela Hill vs. Luana Pinheiro

Tatsura Taira faces the toughest challenge of his career when he fights one-time UFC title challenger Tim Elliott.

The 24-year-old flyweight is set to fight Elliott (20-13-1) at a UFC APEX event in Las Vegas on May 18. Eurosport was first to report the matchup.

In 15 pro bouts, Taira has yet to taste defeat. He has gone 5-0 against UFC competition with his most recent win taking place at UFC Vegas 83, where he defeated Carlos Hernandez via second-round TKO.

Elliott, 37, is coming off of a first-round submission of Sumudaerji this past December. He has won six of his past eight fights.

Currently, Taira and Elliott sit at No. 13 and No. 15, respectively, in the MMA Fighting Global Rankings.

Photo by Pedro Vilela/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

Also scheduled for May 18 is a strawweight clash between No. 12 Angela Hill and Luana Pinheiro, first reported by MMA Junkie.

Hill (16-13) continues to be one of the toughest outs at 115 pounds, having recently scored a win via unanimous decision over 24-year-old prospect Denise Gomes. “Overkill” has won three of her past four fights, which includes decision nods over Emily Ducote and Loopy Godinez.

A 2020 Contender Series signing, Pinheiro (11-2) suffered the first loss of her UFC career this past November when she was stopped in the third round by Amanda Ribas. Prior to that setback, she won her first three UFC fights, including a split decision win against veteran Michelle Waterson-Gomez.

Photo by Louis Grasse/PxImages/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Tecia Torres vs. Tabatha Ricci
Matt Frevola vs. Michael Johnson
Jake Hadley vs. Charles Johnson

“The Tiny Tornado” is back.

In her first fight since giving birth in June 2023, Torres (13-6) returns to the octagon to fight No. 13-ranked Tabatha Ricci (9-2) in a strawweight bout at UFC St. Louis on May 11. News of the matchup was first broken on Belal Muhammad’s Remember The Show podcast.

In Torres’ last fight before her pregnancy, she lost a split decision to Mackenzie Dern at UFC 273 in April 2022. She has been a mainstay in the strawweight division and had won three straight before the loss to Dern.

Ricci looks to bounce back from just her second UFC loss, a split decision against Loopy Godinez at UFC 295. “Baby Shark” lost her first UFC fight before rebounding with four straight victories.

Also on the May 11 card, Matt Frevola faces lightweight veteran Michael Johnson (first reported by Frevola himself), and Jake Hadley and Charles Johnson meet in a flyweight contest (first reported by MMA Orbit).

Frevola (11-4-1) was riding a streak of three straight first-round knockouts before running into Benoit Saint Denis at UFC 295, where he saw the tables turned on him as he was handed a KO defeat in just 91 seconds. He won’t have much support in the arena when he faces Johnson (22-19), a St. Louis native competing in his hometown for the first time since 2018.

Hadley (10-2) and Johnson (14-6) fight to stay in the mix at 125 pounds. Hadley is 2-2 coming off of a loss to Cody Durden, while Johnson recently snapped a three-fight losing streak with an upset decision win over the previously unbeaten Azat Maksum.

Photo by Pedro Vilela/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

Eduarda Moura vs. Denise Gomes

Undefeated strawweight Eduarda Moura fights fellow Brazilian Denise Gomes at a Fight Night event on June 8, with a location still to be determined.

The bout was first reported by Eurosport.

Moura, a 2023 Contender Series signing, impressed in her UFC debut, taking Montserrat Conejo out in the second round via strikes at UFC Sao Paulo this past November. She is 10-0 in her pro career with just one of her fights going to the scorecards.

Gomes (8-3) also has a reputation as a finisher with six of her wins coming via way of KO/TKO. That includes her two UFC victories against Yazmin Jauregui and Bruna Brasil, which are sandwiched between decision losses to Angela Hill and Loma Lookboonmee.

UFC Vegas 90

Photo by Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images

With the April 6 Fight Night just around the corner, here is the updated lineup for UFC Vegas 90, which saw a shakeup at the top of the card.

Brendan Allen (23-5) was originally scheduled to fight Marvin Vettori in the middleweight main event, but with Vettori forced to withdraw due to undisclosed reasons, Chris Curtis (31-10, 1 NC) has stepped in on short-notice to set up a rematch. Curtis defeated Allen via second-round TKO when they first fought in December 2021.

Currently, the co-main event is set to feature former UFC featherweight champion Germaine de Randamie (10-4) facing Norma Dumont (10-2) in a 135-pound bout. De Randamie gave birth to a child this past March and competes for the first time since October 2020.

In her most recent outing, “The Iron Lady” submitted Julianna Peña via guillotine choke in the third round. She has won eight of her past 10 fights, with her only losses coming at the hands of Amanda Nunes.

Dumont has won six of seven, but has yet to prove that she can successfully hit the bantamweight limit on the scales. She has regularly competed at featherweight, and in her one fight scheduled for 135 pounds, she missed the mark by 3.5 pounds.

See the updated UFC Vegas 90 card below (bout order still to be finalized):

Brendan Allen vs. Chris Curtis

Germaine de Randamie vs. Norma Dumont

Trevor Peek vs. Charlie Campbell

Alexander Hernandez vs. Damon Jackson

Alatengheili vs. Victor Hugo

Piera Rodriguez vs. Cynthia Calvillo

Court McGee vs. Alex Morono

Valter Walker vs. Lukasz Brzeski

Dan Argueta vs. Jean Matsumoto

Nora Cornolle vs. Melissa Dixon

Ignacio Bahamondes vs. Christos Giagos

Morgan Charriere vs. Chepe Mariscal

MMA Fighting – All Posts

Former UFC and WWE Superstar Ronda Rousey absolutely shredded pro wrestling’s “Emperor Palpatine” Vince McMahon in her upcoming memoir.

Officially set for a release on April 2, Our Fight will give fans of the women’s MMA pioneer a glimpse into her journey from an Olympic medalist, to a UFC champion, to one of the biggest names in all of sports entertainment. Unfortunately, it wasn’t glitz and glamor, particularly during her post-UFC stint as a member of the WWE roster.

From 2017 to 2023, Rousey was an active member of the WWE Universe — aside from a period of inactivity during which her daughter was born. During her time in the spotlight, ‘Rowdy’ was one of the biggest names in the game and even broke barriers by being one of the first women to ever headline WrestleMania.

Last year, Rousey walked away from the promotion, leading many to believe that she was gearing up for a return to MMA at UFC 300 on April 13.

We now know that’s not the case, but it appears that there was a far darker reason for her decision to walk away, as seen in an excerpt from her book.

“NXT was founded by and under the control of Triple H, real name Paul Levesque,” a section of Rousey’s memoir read.” In addition into being my in-ring WrestleMania nemesis, he is arguably one of the best professional wrestlers in history and one of the better people on the business side. He is married to Stephanie McMahon, who is the daughter of WWE’s Emperor Palpatine, Vince McMahon. Vince took over the company from his father in the early 1980s and spent the better part of forty years playing a real-world pro-wrestling version of Monopoly, buying up and absorbing smaller promotions until he basically owned them all.

“It’s hard sometimes to know where the evil, unethical, slimeball character of Vince McMahon played out for the camera ends and the actual questionably ethical, many times sued, and multiple times accused of sexual misconduct Vince McMahon begins. That blurred line between character and reality is a recurring theme within the WWE Universe” (h/t BJPenn.com).

Ronda Rousey takes a dig at McMahon’s deal with Saudi Arabia

In January, a former WWE employee named Janel Grant filed a lawsuit against McMahon, alleging that the WWE founder had sexually assaulted her multiple times in 2021 and trafficked her to other employees within the organization. McMahon allegedly pressured Grant into signing an NDA to secure her silence in exchange for $ 3 million. However, after the initial $ 1 million payment, no further payments were ever made prompting Grant to file the suit.

McMahon stepped down from his role with the WWE and as a chairman of its parent company, TKO Group shortly after the allegations were first reported in The Wall Street Journal.

“[Pay-per-views are] held in major cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia, as well as twice a year now in Saudi Arabia,” the memoir continues. “A nation that restricts the rights of women in a way that I’m certain Vince McMahon wishes he could.”

LowKickMMA.com

UFC

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

TKO Group Holdings, the parent company of the UFC, saw stock prices jump dramatically on Wednesday after news broke that the promotion settled two separate antitrust lawsuits and will prevent either from going to trial.

At closing, TKO stock was up 7.84 percent — $ 6.35 per share — with the price jumping from $ 81.15 per share to $ 87.37 when market closed at 4:30 p.m. ET. In other words, investors essentially celebrated news that the antitrust lawsuits are coming to a close without a trial ever happening.

In the end, the UFC ultimately agreed to pay out $ 335 million for two separate lawsuits brought by the fighters, who were trying to prove that the promotion operated with “monopsony power” and alleged that the company used exclusive contracts, coercion, and acquisitions that eliminated competitors to maintain a stranglehold on the sport.

In a filing made to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, TKO stated that “the company anticipates that the settlement amount will be deductible for tax purposes.”

While a judge overseeing the case still needs to sign off on the proposed resolution, both sides involved in the antitrust lawsuit have already reached an agreement after weeks of mediation took place.

That brings to an end the antitrust lawsuits after the first one was filed a decade ago in 2014. The $ 335 million settlement, which will likely become tax deductible, means the UFC really won’t take a financial hit as a result. The company has continued to produce record revenue year over year, including $ 1.3 billion earned in 2023.

Those figures will very likely increase exponentially over the next two years as the UFC prepares to embark on a new broadcast rights deal that could double in value from the previous seven-year contract with ESPN that runs through 2025.

Wall Street analysts had already backed TKO as a stock worth watching, especially with World Wrestling Entertainment — the other half of the merged company — recently striking new TV deals, including a massive $ 5 billion contract with Netflix for WWE Monday Night Raw. Settling the antitrust lawsuits and preparing for a new TV deal with negotiations starting later this year will only make TKO even more attractive to investors.

MMA Fighting – All Posts

It’s no secret that UFC bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley and Marlon “Chito” Vera do not like each other.  The two have fought twice but hasn’t settled their differences.  

In the first meeting, Vera handed O’Malley his first and only career loss at UFC 252 in August 2020.  In the rematch at UFC 299 on March 9, O’Malley dominated Vera on his way to a one-sided unanimous decision.    

Since the rematch, the two have gone back and forth on social media.  Vera accused O’Malley of ‘greasing’ and being ‘slippery’ in the fight.  On Monday, O’Malley went off when discussing Vera.  

“I don’t get it.  I don’t get the whole Chito thing.  Everyone seems to love this dude,” O’Malley said on his YouTube channel.  “I’m like, that motherf**ker is a fake-ass b*tch.  Chito sucks.  F**k him.”  

“I know sh*t that people don’t know that will change their minds on him but I’m not going to go out there and post it.  The DM sh*t was real,” O’Malley continued.  “I was in his f**king head.  I was his brain.  I was thinking for him… F**k that guy.  Then he comes out and says I’m greasing my hair.  Bro didn’t get close enough to even smell my hair.  What’s greasing my hair going to do?”

If the fight promotion ever decides to book a trilogy between O’Malley and Vera, it won’t be difficult to promote it.    

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